How to Keep Your Facebook Fans Despite the New See First Option

This is the first of a 2 part series on increasing your Facebook Page reach in these tough times

Frustrated that your Facebook page is getting about as much exposure as a Donald Trump at a Greenpeace convention? Join the club.

Yes, Facebook has done it again. New changes recently launched at Facebook, aims at making the user experience (us, when we’re just “us”) a more tailored and relevant one, while at the same time putting another obstacle in the path of Facebook Pages for business. We can’t blame Facebook. Just like Google, Facebook is constantly working on making the Facebook experience a good one for users, using all kinds of mystery algorythms. A good thing. Most of us are users too.

That being said, the just released update, called ‘See First’ which allows people to customize for themselves rather than having FB do it for them, the types, or specific Facebook friends, feeds and pages they want to appear in their news feed, makes our job of getting in front of the customer that much harder, whether it be organically or via paid ads .

The Facebook See First feature allows users to handpick friends, and pages, whose posts they wish to see first up on their timeline. All the user needs to do is tap the “More” button present on the foot of their screen, and scroll down to the News Feed Preferences.

It looks like this on a desk top:

If someone chooses to, they can Like the page, and then hover over the Like button until the drop down menu displays the above options, and then choose “See First. It’s much fancier on IOS phones, and as of today not released yet on Androids, but coming:

No question this is going to make it even more challenging for those of us using Facebook to market our services and products. It wont be enough to just advertise services and get likes through ads anymore because if users aren’t engaged with the content they are not going to add you to the ‘see first’ list and actually the posts may not appear anywhere in their feed at all, even though they have liked the page.

Essentially, a Like only benefits Pages if the page is publishing content people enjoy, and the chances that people enjoy their content is much lower if they had to secure their Like with ads rather than someone seeking them out organically. Paid ads are going to have to be much more creative and targeted , and posts will need more engaging content that speaks to them, as well as encourages interaction by appealing to peoples pain points – with solutions, or to their love of kittens posing as puppies. ‘See First’ exacerbates this natural selection. Someone who didn’t really love a brand in the first place but Liked it from an ad probably isn’t going to See First them.

See?

Pain-Solution-Entertainment. The 3 top Facebook post types people seek out

At the same time, in case you were wondering, Facebook is choosing who our posts will be shown to using this formula, which hasn’t changed much:

So what do we do to increase our reach and be “chosen” or displayed via the grace of Facebook?

We help Facebook remain relevant for our audiences by encouraging engagement with our posts

We post to a targeted audience, the highest form of quality content that grabs people and speaks to their pain

We make it easier for folks to engage, and click, by asking questions or speaking directly to their pain points

Digital Marketing Strategist, speaker and blogger, Suzen Pettit has been in marketing for the past 27 years wearing various hats. Founder of OMAGinarium, (an acronym for Online Marketing and Growth), Suzen’s specialty is getting small companies and doctors FOUND and helping them stay “sticky” with online marketing and website traffic strategies, social media marketing, optimized websites, SEO, blogging, and content marketing. Suzen has helped dozens of small companies, entrepreneurs and medical practices stand out, get their businesses on the map, and attract more website traffic and warm leads.

When not working hard for her clients, Suzen can be found blogging and providing content for the Patch hyper-locals, Mashable, Founders Space, Create Hype, and Steamfeed, as well as speaking on topics geared to online business growth. Suzen was recently voted #3 from Voiceboks.com Top 10 Tech and Interne Savvy Blogs of 2014, and was featured in the August issue of Tribal Woman.

Comments

Suzen do you think it’s worth continuing with my page? As a realtor it’s important to prospect and Facebook seems like the right place- all my potential clients are there, as are the customers. But I can’t seem to grow my following there without throwing a lot of ad dollars at it….what do you think about advertising now with the see first update?

That’s What She Said

I came to Suzen because my website was nowhere, and when I say nowhere I mean it was nowhere. It needed optimization in a big way. My practice is only 3 years old and I finally have time to devote to getting “my word out”. Suzen has made it so easy, doing for me what I don’t have time to do myself, creating creative forms of content to set me apart, in her words from “the maddening crowd”. I’m now getting referrals from practices that were unaware that I existed 6 months before. She’s upped my b…

Jackson Mecalf, MD

My OB-GYN practice was way behind the times technologically. We had nothing to distinguish us on the internet from any of the many other practices in the area. Suzen’s expert guidance and the skills of the Omaginarium team enabled us to increase our visibility , expand our marketing options and most importantly draw new patients to our offices. We have been so successful that we have added a new Physician Assistant to handle all the increased traffic.

Miriam H Khan, MD

“Last nights EWN event “Rock Your Website to the Top of Google” ROCKED ! As a long time member of EWN, last nights event was one of the most memorable for walking out with lots of ammo. Suzen filled every inch of her talk with useful information and moved things along at a pace that kept everyone in the room stimulated, inquisitive and wanting more…glad to hear she has a webinar coming up in January. Great job, thanks Suzen!…”

Suzen Pettit’s business growth speech was both impactful and inspiring. I gained practical insight and valuable tips on increased online visibility and marketing tactics at large. A savvy coach, Suzen motivated me to “Get Cracking!”

Aline Weiller, Founder, CEO, Wordsmith, LLC

Our start-up was having a difficult time getting noticed online. And then came Suzen. 6 months later we now dominate page 1 of Google. She’s inventive, so easy to work with and fun. It’s been a pleasure working with her and the results speak for themselves.

Jack ConnerFounder and CEOQuara

Suzen and her team whipped my website into shape and in front of the exact market I was looking for but didn’t know how to find on my own. I’m a Veterinarian, not a marketer. I didn’t really understand the value of digital marketing or social media strategy for that matter, but now I do. In the last 6 months we’ve been working together my walk in rate has increased by at least 20%, especially in the last month. Wonderful. Thank you so much! Recommend highly.

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I went to Suzen because Over40Females.com was not built to capture emails – no one told me that our “Newsletter” tab hidden in the corner was not enough. After one short meeting, Suzen told me how to strategize my homepage to make people want to sign up, and how to do it affordably. I have to be honest, I was skeptical, but after doing exactly what she recommended we immediately went from 2 – 3 newsletter sign-ups per week to 2 – 3/DAY and continuing to grow!
Thank-you!
Judy

Suzen did a fantastic job evaluating my Frittabello website. Not only did she provide the information in a clear and ‘user-friendly’ way, she really cared about how I could implement these changes and offered many suggestions that would save me time and money. I would highly recommend Suzen to anyone looking for real, workable solutions to enhance their website performance and SEO

Jennifer Covello, Owner, Frittabello

Suzen is a great mind for your business. After spending 2 decades as a senior corporate marketing exec it is refreshing to work with someone who is agile, smart and unbounded. Suzen brought a fresh perspective to our business on many levels; adjusting our lenses with regard to driving web traffic, leveraging social media, creating new and different tools designed to “spread” naturally through the internet, and ultimately increasing walk-ins. She is also a groovy and edgy chick who isn…